Sanctuary
by KateCayce
Summary: After they survive the first season, John and his sons go back to visit an old friend
1. Meetings

Disclaimer: Supernatural is owned by the WB as are the Winchesters.

The main bulk of the story will be set sometime after the first season – if all three of the Winchesters survive the wreck!

**Sanctuary**

_**23 years ago**_

"I hate you, Uncle Jim! You have to be dealing yourself great hands and giving me all the crappy cards." Annie informed her uncle in a very dramatic fashion, part of her teenage melodrama.

Jim looked at her sternly. "I don't cheat. How would it look if a man of God cheated?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "Hmmm?"

Both laid their cards down at the sound of pounding on the door. "Who could that be at this time of night?" Jim wondered as he glanced at the clock to see the hands at 10pm. He made sure to look out the window to the side of the door, and rushed to open the door.

"Jim." John Winchester looked as if a battering ram had hit him in the face several times and won. He also looked as if the act of standing straight was painful.

"John. You look horrible." Jim moved aside to let John come into his home. Then he noticed the two small figures in John's shadow. "Dean. Sammy. Come on inside, boys."

John gestured for six-year-old Dean to lead his two-year-old brother inside the door. "I got caught by surprise by that…." Just at that moment John noticed Jim's sixteen-year-old niece standing in the living room with a shocked look on her face. "You've got company?"

Jim wheeled around to look at Annie. He smiled at the girl as he helped his old friend to the couch. "Annie isn't company. She's my niece."

"Joey's girl?" John asked, referring to Jim's older brother.

Jim looked into John's eyes for a moment as a hint that a more detailed explanation would forthcoming before he spoke. "Yes, Joey and Lucy are her parents."

"Were." Both men looked up at the hollow sound of her whispered correction. "They died." Annie stated the obvious as her eyes took on a haunted look and filled with tears.

"My mommy died too." Dean had moved next to Annie and, looking up at her, squeezed her hand in sympathy.

Annie wiped her tears away and knelt down by Dean. "I'm sorry for you. I met her a couple of times when I was younger." Annie smiled. "She fixed my doll."

"That was you?" John asked, wincing as Jim was helping him get his ragged (and now bloodstained) old Army surplus jacket off.

Annie looked up at him, now with a squirming Sammy on her lap. "Yes, sir."

"Ouch. That hurts more than these cuts. Call me John."

Annie smiled up at him. "Okay."

Annie turned her attention to the two little boys who needed her care just as their father was getting both physical and spiritual care from her uncle. "So what's your name?" Annie asked Sammy as she gently tickled him.

Sammy started laughing hysterically. Dean plopped to his knees beside Annie and together they tickled Sammy some more.

"I haven't heard Sammy laugh like that before." John winced as Jim help pull his shirt off and away from the cuts and bruises on his torso.

"John, what did that thing do to you?" Jim was astonished at the beating his life-long friend had received.

"It really objected to that holy water you gave me." John chuckled.

"Sure, blame it all on me." Jim lightly tapped John on the shoulder, a gentle reminder of the harder hit he would have given him if he hadn't been in such bad shape.

"So what was the story behind Joey and Lucy?" John asked, lowering his voice so only Jim could hear now that Annie had both boys climbing all over her.

"I'm pretty sure it was something supernatural that got them, but I'm not sure what it was. Neither is Billy, Jefferson or Caleb. Annie saw whatever it was, but can't remember much of that night." Jim glanced over at his niece. "Or doesn't want to remember. She's been with me ever since."

"She seems like a good girl."

Jim smiled. "She is great with people, very intuitive and almost psychic at times. And she loves kids."

"Does she know anything about what we do?" John asked.

Jim took a deep breath and let it our before he answered. "Like I said, she's almost psychic at times. I think she could feel that thing attack her parents. She found them afterwards." Jim wiped his eyes. "I didn't get there until the next day after the cops called me. By that time, Annie was pumped full of tranquilizers. I guess when the police found her she was just bouncing-off-the-walls hysterical. She still passes out any time she tries to talk about it."

John laid his hand on Jim's. "I am so sorry, man."

Jim nodded and reached for a small jar of ointment and bandages. "Now time to minister to the living."


	2. Memories

…_A few days later…_

John was standing at the window in Jim's parish house kitchen, enjoying a steaming cup of coffee and listening to his sons eat breakfast at the table behind him. _Mary, I wish you were here to see these two scamps of ours._ Then he noticed a solitary figure in the backyard looking lonely.

Annie didn't physically hear John approach her from the house. But she did feel his presence come closer. He stopped a few feet from her and sat on the bench beneath the old maple tree she was leaning against.

"You're uncle's a good man." John got comfortable on the bench.

Annie moved over to the bench and sat down next to John. "I know. He is a good priest and has always been nice to me. He's my favorite uncle."

John chuckled. "I thought he was your only uncle?"

Annie smiled. "He is."

Silence reigned for a few minutes before either of them spoke again. "He is just trying to help you." John glanced over at the girl.

Annie looked down at her hands, tightly clasped in her lap. "I…" She cleared her throat. "I don't think he realizes what that may cause…"

"He knows that you can see things." John stretched out his right arm so that it was right behind Annie just in case she needed contact.

Annie looked over at John with tears flowing from her eyes. "Does he really know _what_ I see? That I saw that thing…that I saw it _eat_ my parents?"

John moved his hand so that it was on the back of Annie's neck. "Yes. Jim knows that you saw something that horrible. He's just trying to find a way to help you past that." John started to rub Annie's back. "And so you will remember the thing that killed Joey and Lucy." John shifted slightly so he was facing Annie. "So I can kill it."

Annie gasped, and raised her tear-filled gaze to look in John's eyes. "You kill things like that?"

"Yeah, ever since Mary was killed by a demon I've been hunting for that particular one. But I've killed a bunch of other supernatural bad guys along the way."

"And Uncle Jim wants me to remember this thing so you can kill it."

John continued to rub Annie's shoulder. "So you can get on with your life and not be haunted by this thing anymore."

"What about you? When are you not going to be haunted anymore?" Annie asked innocently.

John's face turned savage, scaring the girl a bit. "When I get that son-a-bitch that killed Mary, then we'll see."

Annie put her hand on top of John's that had stopped rubbing her shoulder. "I hope that it's soon."

…_Later that night…_

John came down the stairs after putting his sons to bed. He saw Annie sitting on the couch doing some homework and Jim was in his easy chair, working on Sunday's sermon. He moved toward the chair next to Jim's and sat down with a groan.

Jim chuckled. "So how are you feeling, old man?"

"A lot better than a few days ago. You must have some magic in that balm you used."

Jim laughed. "Nope, just good old horse liniment like Mom used to use on us."

John groaned. "It used to hurt when she put it on."

"Yeah, because she was smacking us upside the head for getting hurt in the first place!"

The two men were so caught up in their remember-whens that John jumped when the notebook landed in his lap. He looked up in time to see Annie settle back on the couch, and bury her head in a textbook. He looked at the top sheet in the notebook and saw a very scary-looking drawing of an old crone with stringy hair.

"Is this…."

Annie looked up from the book with a look of both terror and pain in her eyes. "Yes. That's the one."

Jim looked from his niece and friend, confused as to the content of the exchange. "What's going on?"

"This is the creature that killed Joey and Lucy." John explained to the priest.

"Annie, did you draw this?" Jim took the drawing that John was handing to him, and walked over to sit beside Annie on the couch.

Annie just nodded, unable to trust her voice.

Jim pulled her into his arms, rocked her like a baby, and kissed the top of her head and murmured comforting words to her.

John sat back in his chair and studied the drawing until Annie had calmed down. "You drew this from memory?"

Annie wiped her eyes and blew her nose before answering. "Yeah. I sat down and drew it this afternoon after we had that talk this morning."

"John, what did you talk to my niece about?" Jim was perturbed that John went behind his back.

"Jim, you wanted to find out the thing that killed Joey and Lucy. Annie and I had a talk this morning that if she would remember what it was, I would kill it for you both."

Jim opened and closed his mouth, like he had something to say and then changed his mind. "Thank you, John."

"Do you remember anything else about this thing?" John gently asked the girl.

Annie closed her eyes and tried to remember. "It likes married couples. It somehow feeds off their love." Her voice broke and she let out a sob. "And it's here in town somewhere. It followed me here."

John and Jim looked at each other, shocked that Annie still had a connection to this thing, months after her parents died. "Are you sure it's here in town?" Jim asked.

Annie looked up at her uncle and nodded. "I can feel it here. It's nearby. It is still hungry or it's hungry again. And it knows that I am here and that I know about it and that I can sense it." Annie had a horrifying look strain her features. "It's coming for me."

John vaulted up from his chair. "Do you have any protections on this house?"

Jim was off the couch and headed for the basement almost as fast as John. "I put protections and blessings on all possible points of entry after I moved in." He chuckled. "Of course, most of those haven't been sanctioned by the Catholic Church…." The men armed themselves and made their way back to the living room.

Just as they returned to the room, someone knocked at the front door. Annie let out a strangled sob as she curled up tighter on the couch.

_I wish she never lost her innocence to this evil, _thought Jim as he glanced at the niece he was unable to comfort at the moment.

The knock came again, this time more insistent.

"It's calling for me to open the door." Annie was looking as if she was in a trance.

"Resist it, sweetheart. It wants to hurt you." Jim warned his niece.

John restrained him. "Let her open the door so we can get it." John instructed his friend.

Annie moved toward the door as if in a haze. As she opened the door, her haze lifted, and she screamed when she realized who was at the door.

The crone tried to enter the house, but screamed in frustration at the metaphysical barriers at the door, preventing her entry.

"Yo, old lady, over here!" John yelled at the crone and aimed a rifle at her heart.

Annie heard the crone talk mind-to-mind. "That won't kill her, John. She is stronger than a mere bullet." Annie thought she was talking normally, but the men heard it as yelling.

Annie heard Jim start to chant in Latin. She heard the crone in her head again. "That won't help Uncle Jim. Words can't banish her!"

Annie felt something else brush her mind, something small and very innocent. Then she felt something hard in her hand.

The men both wouldn't be able to recall what happened next exactly. One minute Annie was standing at the door, held psychically by the crone, and then the next minute the crone was gone and Annie had an ancient athame in her hand.

Everyone stood for a few moments and caught their breath.

"How did you get that athame?" John asked as he walked toward Annie.

"I gave it to her." Dean gave the front door a gentle push to close it as he answered his father.

John knelt down on one knee and gathered his son in his arms. "You should have been upstairs in bed, my man."

Dean hung his head. "I was on the steps and heard you talking about that crone coming, and after Annie opened the door I heard her call for me to give her the athame."

"I don't remember calling to you, Dean." Annie knelt beside John and laid a hand on Dean's head. "But thank you for hearing me."

Jim dropped into a chair. "I think we should all sleep in tomorrow."

John laughed. "You think this is exhausting? Try getting beat up on top of that!"

Annie and Jim laughed as the party made their way upstairs and to their beds.


	3. Reunion

_**Twenty-three Years Later – Present Day**_

Anna Murphy groaned right back at her class. "Yes, you will read two chapters by tomorrow. And I expect you guys to know the material this time." The end bell rang. "Goodbye!"

Anna had to chuckle as the classroom emptied of her students. They protested the assignments, but they all did them anyways. _I got lucky with students who actually want to learn._

As she made her way out of the building and to her car, Anna felt something was a little off. Like the sun wasn't shining just right. But she shook off the feeling and got in her car for the drive home.

As she made her way through town, the feeling that something wasn't quite right came back to haunt her. _I've had this feeling ever since Uncle Jim was killed. I need to get past this grief_, Anna thought as tears began to cloud her eyes.

After turning onto the one-car lane to her farm, the feeling began to get stronger. _Someone is at the farm. _When she parked the car, Anna reached into her glove box and pulled out a pistol and a dagger. She placed the gun in her right coat pocket and dagger in her left pocket. Everything looked normal, but something was gnawing in the back of her mind.

Anna pulled her bag out of the back seat and made her way to the farmhouse. She stood on the porch for a moment, one hand reaching for the door handle. _Snap out of this, lady! It's just an overactive imagination!_ Anna grabbed knob and twisted, opening the door. She walked into her kitchen, which looked as it did every other day of the week, every other week of the year. _See, silly, no ghosts!_

She made her way upstairs to her bedroom to change into "work" clothes, because she had chores to do. When she walked into her room, she let out a strangled scream of surprise.

"Hello, Annie." John Winchester lifted his head. He was sitting on the edge of her bed with bandages covering parts of his face and body.

"What in the name of God have you gotten yourself into this time, John Winchester?" Anna jumped when she heard a voice behind her.

"The same thing we did." Dean winced as he leaned on the doorjamb.

Anna stood there for a moment, looking back and forth between John and his sons. They all looked like they had been to hell and back.

"Did you get that son-of-a-bitch that killed Uncle Jim?" Anna got a bit snarly.

"Yeah, we got her." Sam walked gingerly into the room and sat on the bed beside his father.

"Did you get the one that killed Mary and Jess?" Anna asked, gentler this time.

The look that John had in his eyes when his eyes made contact with hers said it all. The grief, anger, frustration, and fear that passed over his face had Anna nearly in tears. She moved closer to her long-time friend and stroked her hand against the side of his face as tears slid down his face. "I will get it before the year is out," John growled.

"In the meantime, you three look like you need rest, some home cooking, and my special care."

Sam chuckled. "Just don't try to tickle me. It hurts too much."

Anna looked at him. "I'm surprised you remember that."

"Remember what?" Dean was confused.

"The first time I met you guys I was tickling Sam in just a few minutes."

"I remember they were both climbing all over you in a matter of minutes." John added as he smiled from the sweet memory.

"If nostalgia time is over, would you three gentlemen please vacate my room so I may change?" Anna batted her eyelashes at the men.

"Chores?" Dean winced as he pulled away from the doorframe that was holding him up.

"Yep. I have a few animals that get a bit ornery if they aren't fed on a regular basis." Anna shoed the men out of the room, shut the door and leaned back onto it. _Oh God, they look so bad. Especially John. He looks defeated. _

A few hours later, the Winchester men were breathing sighs of satisfaction from the huge meal that Anna had just fed them. "I forgot how good your baked chicken was, Annie." John remarked as he started to get up from the table.

"Sit. You need to let that food digest a bit before you get up." Anna started to gather up plates and cutlery.

"No dessert?" Dean looked disappointed.

"Nope, not tonight but maybe tomorrow. It'll be Saturday and I'll have time to bake a cake."

Anna and John both laughed at the looks on his sons' faces.

"Can you make that chocolate one?" Dean was practically salivating already.

"No, how about a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting?" Sam put in his own request.

Anna looked over at John. "Do you have any requests?"

John chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the burnt sugar cake that your grandma used to make."

"Hm. Which one should I make? Eenie, miney, mo." Anna laughed as she made her way to her pantry to check for ingredients. After she opened the door and turned on the light, Anna stopped and turned back toward the men.

"Annie, what's the matter?" Sam was already out of his chair and walking toward Anna.

Anna out up her hand to stop Sam from advancing. "Now I know why I felt so off today. It just felt wrong today." Anna was muttering to herself.

"What was wrong today?" John was worried, since Annie had shown psychic abilities since her teen years.

"I felt weird when I was leaving the school, like the sun wasn't shining the right way. It just felt _off_. And I just remembered why." Anna walked back to the table.

"What was the reason?" Dean asked.

Anna turned to him. "You know what we were doing twenty-three years ago tonight?"

Dean's eyebrows came together as he searched his memory for this 'event' from when he was six. His face opened up as he remembered that night. "I gave you that athame you used to kill the crone."

"That was tonight?" John was searching for that particular memory.

Anna walked over to a cupboard and pulled a velvet bag from the shelf. "I've kept that athame safe since then." She pulled on the cords so the bag opened and she pulled the athame free.

"What's the significance of this?" Sam was getting more confused.

"What do you feel?" John was beginning to catch onto to Anna's intent, and was hoping that he was wrong.

"I don't think I killed that crone twenty-three years ago."

"Why do you say that Annie?" Dean asked, a little less confused than Sam, but still not completely up to speed.

"I feel her in my head again!" Anna shouted to no one in particular. "Get out of here, you BITCH, and leave me alone!"

John was up and out of his chair in an instant, coming round the table to shake Anna. "Annie, do NOT let her get control of you."

Anna looked up at John, the tears in her eyes starting to spill down her cheeks. "She is screaming in my head." Anna said, softly.

"I hear her." Sam was concentrating on the psychic connection between Anna and the crone. "She's screaming about how Annie ruined her plans the last time." His eyes fluttered shut, and after a few moments, they opened suddenly. "She's outside on the porch."

"I know Annie has every kind of protection on this house, so she can't get in." John had an arm around the woman and was holding her upright.

"But something was wrong with that the last time." Dean pointed out. "She came back. Maybe Annie needs to be in an unprotected area for the kill to take."

John nodded. "It's possible. Open the door so I can take Annie outside."

Dean went to open the door as John maneuvered Anna toward the portal.

"Don't forget this, Dad." Sam held out the athame.

"Thanks." John took the dagger from his son and pressed it into Anna's hand.

"She's getting louder in my head." Anna whispered to John as they went through the doorway.

John leaned Anna against him, and then held her head against his face. "You can do this Annie. You have our faith and love behind you," he whispered into her ear as she became aware of her surroundings.

Anna moved away from him, and walked down the steps of the porch. "Come here you BITCH!" She screamed into the dark.

The crone came walking through the yard form the direction of the barn. She was whispering odd sounds and cackling as she stopped a few feet from Anna. The woman and the crone looked at each other. The men knew there was a battle raging that only one them could hear.

"What's going on Sammy?" John didn't take his eyes of Anna.

"They are screaming at each other. The crone is pissed at Annie for spoiling her plans, and Annie just wants her gone for good."

The crone started to move closer to Anna, and the men tensed up. Anna shifted her arm up so that she could stab the athame into the crone, and tried to drive the blade home, but the crone dodged and Anna had to rebalance quickly before she fell. After another attempt to stab the crone, Anna got the blade inserted into the crone's chest. The crone turned to dust before their eyes.

Anna swooned as the men reached her and slowed her contact with the ground.

"Annie, talk to me," John shook her slightly to get a response.

"I could use some water." Anna opened her eyes and saw the three men surrounding her. "And one of you should salt her ashes. Then she can never come back."


	4. Revelations

_The next morning…_

John walked across the barnyard towards Anna's house. He had been out for nearly an hour on a walk in the hazy sunshine of dawn, checking on the fences both visible and invisible on Anna's land. Years ago, when Anna had bought this place after she finished her doctorate and starting teaching at the local college, Pastor Jim and John had laid every kind of protective spells and symbols both in the house and around on the land. Anna knew about the house's protection, but neither Jim nor John told her about the extra spells on the property. It was just as well she hadn't depended on them, since John had found gaps in the protection that hadn't been there the last time he had come to see Anna, nearly three years ago. _I'll have to get the boys to come out with me to shore up those gaps._ _They can both read the incantations as well as I can. _John knew that if Anna was protected, then his boys always had a home to come to. _The home I never had a chance to give them with Mary._

As he reached the porch steps, the sounds of the ruckus in the kitchen filtered through the open door. When John reached the screen door, he saw Sam and Dean trying to pry something from Anna that she was almost hunched over in a protective stance. _Probably their breakfast._

"Hey, what are you doing?" John barked at his sons.

Dean and Sam both put their arms down, and looked almost comical with the guilty looks on their faces.

"They were trying to get into the cookie jar." Anna straightened up and gave a disgusted look to the younger men.

"Well, you shouldn't have told them about your grandpa having dessert after breakfast," John gently scolded as he made his way into the house and helped himself to a large mug of steaming hot coffee.

"That was over half a century ago."

"Your grandpa died when you were thirteen, and he was still having cookies after breakfast."

Anna sighed dramatically and put the ceramic cookie jar on the table. "Fine! If the three of you want to rot the teeth out of your heads, it's fine with me!" She turned away and started to grab eggs and sausage out of the refrigerator for their real breakfast.

"So, how did the place look to you, John?" Anna asked as she starting cracking eggs into a large red bowl.

"Pretty good. I think your renter should think about letting that one field go to pasture for a year or two."

"You mean the one that's been invaded by something in the last year?" Anna beat on the eggs as she turned toward the table. "I know you and Uncle Jim had fun with the perimeter of this place."

"Hm?" Dean's mouth was full of cookie as he looked between his father and friend.

"When Annie bought this place, her uncle and I put a few protective spells around it."

"A few? At one point when they were fresh, nothing could get in if it was the slightest bit supernatural." Anna looked sternly at John.

"Jim was just looking out for you," John stated quietly. "Why did you let that gap get so bad?"

Anna took a deep breath before answering. "I didn't have anyone else to read the incantations."

"You could have called us," Dean said as he looked back and forth between the older adults.

"I tried. But Sam wasn't at school any more, and I kept getting you and your dad's voice mail. I don't like to leave messages." Anna turned her back toward the men.

"That's bullshit!" John was getting angry at Anna's evasiveness.

"And I'm tired of being treated like a helpless CHILD who could break at the slightest touch!" Anna screamed back at John.

John scowled at her. "Then stop acting like a CHILD!" He roared back at her.

Anna put the bowl down and calmly walked out the door and slammed the screen door behind her.

Meanwhile, as John and Anna were screaming at each other, Dean looked at his younger brother. Sam had that look on his face that he got when he could 'hear' something on the psychic channel. After a few minutes, Dean got his brother's attention and they both left the room quietly, leaving their dad to his coffee and Anna to the porch.

After going up to Sam's room, Dean gently closed the door. "So you think they're fighting about something else?"

Sam grinned. "Oh, yeah. There is a lot more there than they're saying. I could hear Annie scream a few things at Dad psychically that he should be glad he can't hear."

Dean looked up. "Like what?"

Sam got a sheepish look on his face. "It was rather personal."

"How personal?"

"Like I think Dad and Annie have had a thing going on for a while."

Dean looked stunned. "He's never gotten involved with anyone after Mom died."

Sam sat down on the bed next to his brother. "Yeah, I don't think he wanted to put anyone in danger like that."

"But Annie?" Dean was still confused on that point.

"You think of her like a big sister, right?"

"Yes."

Sam let out a deep breath. "I was so young when we met Annie that she is almost like a mom to me."

Dean shifted so that he could look at his brother. "Really?"

"Yeah. Annie was there when we were little to fix up our cuts and bruises, she helped us with our homework, and she has always been here for us."

Dean made a little sound of agreement. "I suppose you're right."

Sam looked hard at Dean. "Do you think I am betraying Mom by thinking that way?"

Dean cuffed his brother upside his head. "Don't ever think that. I'm just mad that I didn't think of that first. By the way, how long have they had this thing?"

Sam thought for a minute, going over the psychic energy that still connected him to Anna. "I think they first started about ten years ago."

Dean looked over at Sam. "That would have been about the time Dad nearly got killed by that werewolf in Indiana."

"Yeah, he was pretty torn up from that thing, so we came back here so he could heal. You had just gotten out of high school, and Annie enrolled me at Gebhardt High."

"Yeah, you were a runty little freshman," Dean laughed as be punched Sam in the shoulder.

Meanwhile, downstairs at the kitchen table, Anna heard the young men laughing in her mind. She looked down at her coffee cup and smiled.

"What's that for?" John asked as he reached over to lay his hand on Anna's.

"They put it all together."

"What did they put together?"

Anna smiled at John. "Sam caught on to a few of the things I was shouting at you psychically during our little tiff. He told Dean that we've been involved since you were nearly butchered in Indiana. And, more importantly, they're okay with it."

John pulled Anna's hand to his lips. "I don't need my sons' permission or approval."

"But it means the world to you that they do approve of us." Anna got up from her chair and sat in John's lap.

John tightened his arms around this woman that he had grown to love. "I am worried that you are going to get hurt since that demon is still out there."

Anna kissed John lightly and then pulled away slightly. "I am very careful, and I live in one of the safest houses in the world. And I have you and the boys to watch my back."

"And what a great back it is to watch." John waggled his eyebrows and leered at Anna.

Just then, they both heard Dean and Sam rattle down the stair.

"When's breakfast going to be ready?" Sam asked as they entered the kitchen.

Anna, who was still being held captive by their father, looked over her shoulder at the younger men. "When you dad decided to let me lose."

Dean barked out a laugh. "Well, that'll never happen."


End file.
